International Truck Coronavirus Update 14

Welcome, everybody, to this edition of International Service Drive Revolution with my distinguished guest, Jeremy, who's working on a book on organizing closets and finishing roofs basements.

Yes.

Adam, who's writing a book on hunting.

And his views on politics. And our special guest today, Corey Just, director of field service operations. How's it going, Corey?

Doing well, Chris. Thanks for the invite. Glad to be here.

It's fun. So we have a lot of fun on this show and I hope that you're into that, if you're into this kind of thing. Do you guys have a book? Because I have a book I want to share with everybody.

I came prepared with the book also, Chris.

Broken Windows, Broken Business by Michael Levine, best seller list, 13 years in a row. Have you guys ever read it?

No.

Have you ever heard of it?

I haven't read it yet. It can't be that great.

Oh, pretty good.

This is how this is gonna roll, huh, Jeremy? We're gonna have a tough one today.

I haven't even started making truck video comments yet.

This book's making a comeback right now because it's very applicable to today's time. Talking about how the little things affect the big things. So.

He interviews Giuliani years ago. So I don't know, this book is probably 20 years old, but Giuliani was talking about how in New York, riding jaywalking tickets detoured the, you know, pimps and criminals in Times Square. And they were like, well, if I were getting jaywalking tickets, we for sure can't commit real crimes because they're paying attention to everything and how those little tiny things matter. And like Giuliani says, like, if, you know, if you put a six o' clock curfew in place, the first person you arrest is at 6 o'. Clock. You're not standing around at 6:20 going, hey, you know, we really mean it, everybody. We're really serious. Like, you have to mean what you say and you have to have an attention to detail. And then the title comes from, you know, if your business has a broken window or graffiti, you. You have to fix it right away. But at least if anything, just put up a little sign that says, under repair or, you know, oops, fix coming soon. Any, anything to let customers know that, you know, that the window's broken or there's graffiti or that sort of thing. Same thing. Like if the bathroom's dirty in a business, you can assume that the rest of the business is going to be disorganized.

It's a great read. You guys would love it. And He's a great guy. Michael Levine.

What's your book, Adam?

Well, I didn't come with a book. I just started a new podcast called Business Wars. You guys remember Blockbuster back in the day?

Yeah, yeah.

Was a member.

Yeah. So I. I miss Blockbuster. And there's a. Yeah, I really actually do because I remember as a kid going with my family and picking the. The Friday movie of. Of the. Whatever. It's probably something Disney, you know, I'm not. I'm not ashamed to say, you know, Cinderella maybe was probably on that. On that list.

But was that on DVD or was it actually a vhs?

I would probably say vhs, yeah. All beta. You know, I remember it was all about. They discounted the VHS when DVDs came out, and I don't even know, did they even have Blu Rays when Blockbuster was still around? I don't remember. Yeah, so right around the tail end. Right. So anyways, the podcast is Business wars, about Netflix versus Blockbuster and Blockbuster. I don't know if a lot of people really realize, or at least around that time, was trying to get into that kind of Internet space, but they came too late into the game. So I think when we talk about some of those type of companies that, you know, kind of come to mind of putting some things out there but missing the boat. I think it's a perfect kind of segue, or at least this podcast that I've been listening to and everything that's going on, it's a interesting kind of environment. But for those companies or businesses, small or large, you know, that don't kind of adapt to the change. Like you said, Chris, even the small little things can adapt to these big changes. If we don't kind of focus on that, we didn't start it, you know, during kind of the beginning of this pandemic and some of our videos, we've talked about sharpening those tools. We. We've got to do it today. We've got to start focusing or try to focus on these things and adapting to change, because otherwise some other company or some other business is going to come and eat our lunch kind of, you know, in a way. And that's kind of where Netflix really took off. I don't know anyone that doesn't have a Netflix account. And obviously Blockbuster, I might be the only person that kind of misses Blockbuster. I kind of miss that interaction. Right. But yeah, you're gonna find where Netflix almost has everything on there. I mean, I love binge watching the Office.

So my favorite part of Blockbuster is when they had a CEO come in after Netflix. And their idea to turn Blockbuster around was to bring the movie experience home. So they were gonna sell popcorn and 2 liter cans of soda was there. That was their way to combat Netflix. And they didn't realize what a disruptor the whole thing was. It's pretty funny.

My last time in a Blockbuster, I realized there was a. And I saw those, those two liter things of pop and the, and the candy and all that stuff, like you're at the movie experience. But when they had it roped off and you had a lineup of 15 people waiting to check out their movies, I figured this is going to die fast. There's got to be enough to get this. And that's when streaming services were just starting and soon realized my time's worth more than this.

Oh yeah, that's interesting. And I bet you Blockbuster was like, hey, we got lines of people. We're fine, right?

Yeah, yeah, there's plenty of customers that'll wait for us to help them.

Well, that's kind of interesting that you say that because I feel like in some of our service locations sometimes we get complacent. We see, you know, a lot of trucks all around us, you know, the hundred plus trucks. And we're like, oh, we've got our business right here. They're waiting in line, we're okay. You know, and it's kind of. We have to shift our mind to a little bit, you know, get it in and out and having that process or those things in place and everything's instant. Now it's just, it's all about service.

Well, the dealers, I mean, the dealers live off backlog.

The.

They need the work there because they're big jobs and they're gonna need to ensure that they can keep the shop busy. But at the same time, they do need that second work stream that you're speaking of, the quick work. Make sure that they have a process in place to do that because they treat everything the same.

Not every customer has the same level of expectation or need at that point.

Yeah, you got it.

The secret is to get it in and out.

Yep.

Fast.

So I do have a book it's from. And I'm not sure you guys can react if you've heard of it. It's Seeing around corners by Rita McGrath.

No. Is it good?

Well, I just started it. I picked it up, I went to Barnes and Noble. So I stood in line to buy my book.

Hey, I'm going to go to Audible right now and buy it.

So anyways, what interested me in the book and I'm only partway through it. Is the intent around it is things are changing around you and how fast do you react to it? One of the quotes, and it was a quote from a different book, but she put it in the book anyways, is snow always melts, will show its melting around the edges. So if you're waiting for all the snow to melt, you're going to wait forever. But your first indication is it's starting to melt around the edges. So it's kind of that direction that how, how in tune are you with your business or how in tune are you with your industry that change is coming and are you going to be prepared and able to react in time? So like I said, I'm partway through it. It's a good read. It's. It's not arduous or anything like any other business book.

So.

Yeah, yeah.

The, the subtitles. How to Spot inflection points in Business before They Happen. That's awesome. Yep, I bought it, so I'm in. Thanks for that tip. I love it.

I'll go wait in line.

Barnes and Noble, huh? That's funny. Jeremy, what do you got?

Well, I am reading the Politics Within. This is.

Oh, wow.

Attitudes and Political Thought, written by a.

Professor. Well, a professor in 1975.

At a college in Virginia. So I'm running for a political office, so I kind of want to do more digging into political thought and how it influences individuals. So I've always been interested in sociology and psychology. So this is just kind of more on that. It's a short book, so I should be able to get through it pretty quickly, but hopefully it'll help me out.

What have you learned so far?

I've learned first of all, that, like, it's very 1970s with a lot of political diagrams and all that, and some of the references are out of date. Like, they do a lot of analysis on Edward Kennedy, obviously, who is not the most relevant political figure these days, but one that people remember. But it's just. There's a lot. There's a lot in. There's a lot in it, and I just started it, but I'm looking forward to getting a little bit more insight. It's not a left or right book, it's an analysis book.

So.

Hopefully I can glean some more knowledge from that.

Should we announce right now here on the show that you're running for city council?

You kind of just did, but I mean, yeah, I'm running for Joliet, Illinois City Council, so watch out, Joliet, Illinois, please. Feel free to vote for me.

They're lucky to have you. I would vote for you if I live there in a second.

When's the election day? Is that November 3rd, just like everybody else, or is it a different.

No, April. It's in April. April, yeah. We get a. We get a hefty. We don't get a whole lot of voter turnout for the April 2021 elections usually so. Or the April elections after a major national election. So it's gonna be a lot people out there to vote in the first place, and then it's gonna be a lot to get them to vote for the guy with one val in his name. So that's.

Are you. How many people are running against you?

15.

What's your. What's your campaign slogan?

Because Joliet is for all of us.

Do we get T shirts or like sweatshirts or anything? I'm all for the free stuff.

I do not have money for that right now, but.

I'll be the first to give you one.

I like. I like your slogan. It unites everybody. It's very nice. I like that, Jeremy.

Oh, thanks, Chris. I appreciate it.

If you get hats or T shirts or whatever, let us know. Whatever we can do. Every vote, evidently every vote counts.

It does. It does indeed.

One of those 15 you're running against is going to be Mormon and have like 20 kids that are voting, so you better get to work.

Well, we don't have too many Mormons in joliet. Illinois said 1.

Is there a debate night that you gotta get prepared for?

Oh, I hope so. I hope so. I haven't seen if it exists, but I would love to debate with 15 other people about Juliet. Issues that actually it's really important.

What are the big issues in Juliet?

Joliet. But honestly, it's like any. It's number three largest city in Illinois, so it's going to be. It's a lot of its economic development, a lot of. It's.

We want to. We want to develop our. Grow trust in the police again. I mean, there's been a lot of. There's been a lot of incidents lately. Crime is up. We need to address that. Homelessness, all those things. It's like the issues that face any real city.

Sounds like la.

Yeah, it's any major city, but.

Corey, are you in Canada?

No, I live in. I work out a Lyle, so I'm just. I'm just west.

Oh, you're right down the street in.

The town of Sugar Grove.

Originally from Canada, Yes.

So Diamond Edge, five years.

Celebrating five Years of Diamond Edge.

The wooden anniversary, I believe that's five years. Is that right?

Is that what you call it?

It's not gold or silver. It's only five. So it's like wooden? No.

Yeah. I don't know what it is, but wooden, sure.

The mahogany Diamond Edge has been around for five years and.

A good performance program for our dealers to achieve certification.

To create a standard and expectation of how they run their business within the service department, give the customers a consistent level of service, hopefully from dealer to dealer.

Yeah. Are you proud of the level of consistency that's been achieved in the. In the marketplace for consumers?

If we're comparing certified dealers to certified dealers? Yeah. You know, from what the original program was launched to what it is today? Yeah, I would say so. We've got some good performance measures within there around repair velocity that customers will notice a difference between that location and one that's not.

And then when you get to the other standards around part on the shelf metrics or training and accelerated service. Yeah, the ones that are engaged in it, yeah, you're going to notice a difference. It's probably on a maturity scale, Chris, for a program that, where we want it to be, we're probably about 75% there. We're still not at 100% where.

We'Ve got facilities included or other elements that you would physically see a difference from dealer to dealer. Because again, these are independent locations. They can still look differently from shop to shop. But at the end of the day, I think the customer experience.

Does make a difference between Diamond Edge certified or not.

Yeah. I think a lot of times our industry, we. We think about our dealership and we think very local. But if you just imagine like going into a McDonald's in a part of the country and it's, you know, completely different. And it's more like a diner that was made 40 years ago and you order a burger and it's completely different than what the Big Mac is. And the inconsistency is bad for the brand. Right. Because if you have an experience somewhere that isn't like the experience you've had before, you might never go back or you might, you know, it will change your mind.

So that consistency is good for everybody across the board, but I think sometimes we lose focus on that. But it. Is there a big difference between certified Diamond Edge dealers sales? Like, is there a correlation between their sales and their certification?

So the way we kind of bucket it is into a dealer performance score. So we take their. Which includes part sales and truck sales and yeah, There is a correlation between. And those ones that are engaged in a certification program are generally engaged in their overall business. So they're striving within their marketplace, they're striving within their AOR to meet targets and goals. Because when you put a measure out there, whether it's in the service department with Diamond Edge or parts or truck sales goals, the dealers that are striving for that measure are going to probably do better across all of those areas. Consistently. They got a good culture. So yeah, we do see a correlation in that, that regard.

Yeah, yeah, they have a clear intention. Right. So anybody with an intention is going to do better than somebody who's just getting by and doesn't have a clear focus.

Well, I think also like in this, the progression of Diamond Edge through the years, it's always grown, grown to these different tiers. Right. I'm really excited for, you know, our, our fiscal year 2021 to see the requirements and we're trying to get some of all those dealers even from a training level web based, even more just kind of getting it to that next level to where we can truly help drive that consistent performance, but also that expectation overall. Right. And I think that, you know, when we talk about, you know, the repair velocity, that's, that's true uptime. But if we're able to get more of the consistent customer experience, which is what we're doing with all the service advisor and service management training and then this next level that we're talking about, right. With Colleen Porter and everything, talking about parts and how we grow the business, I think it all encompasses within Diamond Edge and overall performance. You know, Cory talked about parts on the shelf. You know, we can't sell any more labor if we don't have parts there. So like, I think it all ties in really solidly and providing really the right tools and the right empowerment for our service locations to achieve those goals. We want them to be easy to a point to where like it's achievable. But we also want to make it to where you've got to work for some of those incentives. But also main driver and incentive too is more customers, more sales. And we like to market Diamond Edge that you are a certified dealer and that's going to drive more business.

Yeah, that's good.

What do you want to add to it, Jeremy?

Well, I really like the way the program has grown over the going over the years. I mean, I've been a part of this group for a while. I've had a lot of exposure to the program. And I like the fact that it's not one of those stifling dealer programs that I see a lot or I see a lot with auto manufacturers. Like, I used to work for gm, and I remember the SFE program and the EBE program. It was really, really, really hard to make those metrics. And I like, Dynage is a good program because it's intended to more or less reflect.

The behaviors we're looking for, rather than, okay, you have to have a foreman. Okay, you have to have this facility look this way. We want dealers to have that individual attempt, have that individual ability, while at the same time delivering the consistent results that customers are looking for. I mean, customers, they're cool with having a different facade and having, you know, you don't have to have the driver's lounge be painted the same wall, the same color as the rest, but they do want consistent communication. They want to know that their vehicle is going to be done as soon as possible, and they want to know that the part's going to be on the shelf when they need it. And that's really. Those are the things that are really important to customers. That's what the Diamond Edge program reflects. And we'll keep changing it and trying to improve the metrics, but more or less so it more accurately reflects what we're looking for rather than just make it harder.

You know.

I think a dealership could use to their benefit when they're talking to their customers, their own customers within their own ar. If they're servicing them at a local level, the customer knows what they expect. But if you got which a good chunk of our business, over half of our business is transient, where the customers are going coast to coast, across the border, and so on. How do I know how my customer is going to be treated in another marketplace? And my only yardstick in that reference is going to be Diamond Edge. Today, I've got nothing else, or previously, I had nothing else to say. I'm rolling the dice as to what they're going to experience in that other marketplace. So providing a program of this nature and helping your brother out in another part of the country saying, yeah, I'm Diamond Edge certified, I am meeting the same targets as you, and I may not get it right every time, but I'm living up to an expectation level that the OEM has set upon you. I'm doing it myself to provide service to your customer. And hopefully it gets reciprocal, right? That's kind of the cool thing about our network is it becomes reciprocal and you pick up the phone and you call each other. That's kind of the leading edge around. Diamond Edge is I'll be Diamond Edge certified to protect not only my customers, but your customers when they break down in my network.

Yeah, I like that. It's more of a family. It's like you're trying to have that tight network of dealers working together.

Yeah. Get away from that. As Jeremy was speaking about the regimented or the really heavy handed OEM push of what the OEM wanted, this is something to protect the customer across work. Not necessarily what we really want as an oem, but what the customer needs.

Yeah, I love how you said your brother too. Like if, you know that's really what it's about because it is a brotherhood in a way. And if we all have the intention of taking care of the customer and we have each other's back, the rest of it will take care of itself.

That's good. That's really good. Corey, where do you, where do you see things going in the next couple years? Do you have any? I mean, you would have never predicted this year.

You know, it's funny, we're coming up against our year end here at the end of this month and as far as how we're coming out of our.

Challenges over the last six to eight months, we're faring, you know, pretty well. We just had a report out on our parts organization earlier today and it was quite, quite impressive as to how strong we are in the last six, six weeks or so.

So, yeah, and where I was going with it is everything that we wanted to do this year as far as all our goals and targets. It's almost like we're just pushing about 12 months because we couldn't do everything that we wanted to do from a customer and dealer engagement.

You know what it really comes down to customer always about the customer. And.

The dealers are really having to be on their toes.

Not only learning what's happened over the last six months, but the competition is getting very fierce out there as to what services they provide to the customer. It's not just come to my dealership, I'll come and support you and service you. There is that need and there's always that work that happens. But the transformation within our industry and it's been happening for years, but we're really feeling the pressure that the customer does not want to go to the dealership. We get lots of requests. If I want to do in house warranties, you know, I want to do the work myself within my own shop. And that's Not a cry for taking work away from the dealership. That's saying, I'm getting it from somebody else. I don't need to go to dealership to get my vehicle serviced, or I don't need to go to a dealership, get my trucks and trailers and all my equipment serviced and repaired. So the mindset is going to have to shift. And we're really trying to reinforce the idea of getting mobile service, mobile maintenance, and not increasing bay capacity with brick and mortar, but with, with mobile vehicles or embedded technicians at customer locations. So that's the element that I really see is it started. It's not new for the next two years, but I see that growing significantly.

The mobile technician aspect of it.

Yeah, absolutely. Especially in the major centers where to get to a dealership could take 3, 4 hours of driving across the city. I mean, down in Southern California, where you are, to get a truck to a dealership to get worked on. I mean, that takes a lot of planning just to get that vehicle over for repair.

You know, that reminds me of an experience I had that was very interesting. But when I was doing some of the legwork for the service manager training, I was invited by a different manufacturer, your competition. And I was up in the Northwest and I toured like, I don't know, seven dealerships and in a couple days. And I started off in.

Southern part of the state at a, at a dealership, and the, the manager is booked out three weeks right on the freeway, right on I5.

And you know, I just, it's one of those things, like I'm always in a weird spot. Corey, because you know how you find yourself sometimes, like, you know the answer for somebody, but you know, if you tell them and it's free advice, they probably won't take it anyways. So it's like you have that weird, like, do I say anything? But I'm, I'm a jackass sometimes. So I said, you know, because he was complaining that he didn't have any stalls. And so I said, you know, you could, you could have mobile text. And he said, oh, that would never work. Like, not how does that work? Or it's like when somebody, when somebody asks a question with the answer built into the question, like service managers, it'll say, so what do we do when this doesn't work? Then it's like, what do you mean? We haven't even tried it yet. How do we know it's not going to work? Because you're going to sabotage it, that's why. So, you know, a couple hours Later, I'm in a different service department and I'm, I'm talking to the manager and I said, so, how many texts do you have? And then I said, what's your efficiency? And, and so the, the also, by the way, the shop I was in that was booked out a couple weeks that said mobile text wouldn't work, their efficiency was like 70%. This, the next shop that I, that I went to, his. His efficiency was around 100. And then we were talking and he said, my most efficient texts are my mobile techs. And I said, oh, how many mobile techs do you have? And he said, I have four, but I would have 10. I'm trying to hire them. And, And I said, well, what is their efficiency goes. They run at 120%. And I was like, how can a mobile tech run at 120% on average? And. And he said, as soon as they're done with the job, they clock on to the next one because our customers will pay for travel time.

And I was like, whoa. Like, I, I mean, I've, I have experience with mobile techs, but the demand was such that customers don't care that they're paying for travel time halfway across the state. Right. Because we're talking in a, a pretty unpopulated part of the, of the state up there in the Northwest that they'll pay for them to go two hours to them, just do it, come do it, whatever you need, you know. And so the idea of having a parts runner and having 10 mobile techs out there, I was just, I'm like, I love talking about it because it's exactly what the customer wants. Like, you know, kind of like Blockbuster Video in a lot of ways. Right?

Yep. Easy to do business.

Yep. Make it easy.

The value of what that customer is willing to pay for is different in their shop and the mobile tech than what they would pay in the dealer shop, where arguably the dealer has more capabilities and more tools available to them. But they're willing to pay the mobile tech to come to their facility more than taking their vehicle there to get the.

Probably a wider breadth of repair capabilities.

Yeah. And so, and I know we all see this, but I just. Everybody watching this, I want you to really think about and do an inventory, because you might be thinking, oh, well, I wouldn't think that way. But just, just think about a shop that's booked out two weeks, that isn't running shifts, because that was another suggestion. And then I go to the next shop, they're running two shifts, they're maxed out on their, on their bay. So there's two techs to every bay because they're running two shifts and they, they have four and they want to scale to 10 mobile techs. And the difference between the two managers was mindset. It wasn't a better facility. It certainly wasn't a better location because I could argue the first one was in a better location. It was purely mindset and focus on the customer. What can I, what can I do to serve customers and make it easy for them? Not what's convenient for me. What makes me not have to change and learn anything new or get outside of my comfort zone or think a little bit different. It's just that little thing, that little moment where you have a decision to be open to an idea or close it off and you know, decide that it won't work, even though you've never tried it.

Like, I think that's key. That's key right there.

It's everything.

Yeah.

Or ask questions, just listen. Like, I'm such a fan of just like conversations about. Well, you know, when the guy said he had four mobile texts and he wanted to go to 10, the next 30 minutes we spent was just talking about how he's going to do it, how is he going to facilitate parts. He's thinking about having a parts runner and you know, in the, and it's just like, wow, like complete, just night and day, you know.

And that's what we need right now. That's what the market is going to demand, is that we're, we're, we're going after. How can we make the customer's business better? How can we drive profits for the customer and then our profits will take care of themselves. We, we can have an effective labor, we can have a fair pricing strategy and they'll pay for the time. But, but it has to be in line with how do we make them successful, not what's convenient for us.

Well, I think it's huge too. That's coming up. Right? You know, a lot of our customers talk about peak season. Well, because of COVID everything's gonna be online. So how much more freight is gonna be hauled this year than years past because they're gonna be moving up this peak season or Black Friday events I think I saw that are already starting. So like when we think about that, we do have to think a little bit differently. Maybe there's some opportunity to kind of try some of that mobile service type activity because we're going to have to think outside the box because the demand is going to Be huge for this one, especially this year if it hasn't in years past. Right?

Yeah.

And not to get confused, there's so many different definitions of what a mobile tech is, from mobile maintenance to mobile repair to emergency breakdown service where they're going on the side of the road to fix trucks and so on. And dealers mindset have to change. The really good dealers that have a successful mobile service capability or mobile repair, they have a dedicated service manager for those technicians. They're dispatching work, they're coordinating the activities. It's not relying on the service manager that's really focused on the stuff that's within his four walls. It does take a different mindset. Dealers, service managers will say this all the time. You can't take your best tech out of the shop and make them a mobile tech. You need an entrepreneurial spirit, somebody that's out there upselling, marketing their business differently because they're running a, as you know, a single bay shop in their, in their mobile service vehicle and they got to operate differently. So it takes a different mindset and those. To your point Chris, at 120%.

Efficiency, I mean that, that's just, that's somebody who is good at their job. And not every tech is at that caliber. Not, not saying can't be the best in the shop, but out on, on a mobile shop or mobile service vehicle, it takes somebody unique.

Yeah, no, and I mean the, my takeaway from that whole thing, Corey, was purely mindset. Purely mindset. Like you know, one just in the same, within a couple hours. Oh no, that would never work. Oh, we're, you know, we're doing these crazy numbers that I'd never heard of before. Like I, I'd never heard of a mobile tech being 120% efficient. Like I thought 100% was good. I've heard of that, but I've never heard of, you know, that they're, they're beating the time. So it's all mindset and just trying it. And I think too the, you know, go out and find a friend in the network that is doing it and learn from them and start with one and grow. But the key is to focus on the customer and how do we make, how do we make their business successful and not so much worrying about how we become successful.

I think your example goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, that the backlog of the dealer got them complacent. And why do I have to change my business model? Because I'm already busy, I'm already full. So I don't need any more work. Well.

That work will soon go away if you're not changing your mindset.

Yep, totally. Well, great stuff, gentlemen. That. That was fun.

Well, I know Adam's. Adam's got to get back to the forest and back in his tree trying to kill an elk or whatever. He's doing a deer.

It's deer season.

Where's the gun rack in that?

Dude, we can't have gun racks in Illinois.

Oh, that's right. Illinois isn't very gun friendly.

So it's under your seat.

That's funny.

Yeah. This was fun. I really enjoyed the dialogue, guys.

Yeah. Thanks for coming on, Corey. Great, great stuff. Yeah. Thanks, everybody. So we'll see you again next time on Service Drive Revolution.